I recently got this on GOG, and while it is a absolute pain to play in DosBOX I was considering trying to get it to play on a real system in my parents house.
Problem is, the game is 1.7 GB, and it is very very finicky. The game was obviously designed with the Pentium processor in mind because the Intel Pentium logo pops up whenever the game detects one.
Does anyone have any recommendations for what could play this game the most stable while not slowing down to slide shows when intense battles take place? Would a SB Live! cause crashes, thus should I only use a real ISA SoundBlaster 16?
“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων
Did a demo of it ever come out (like with PC Gamer)? I know I only owned the first one, but i wanna say I played a few minutes of the sequel on my old pentium overdrive. Between that, and not being able play to Curse of Monkey Island, I knew I had to upgrade asap. The demo was mostly cinematics, though.
Also from reading the documents, apparently the video player in Privateer 2 caused problems on some hardware configurations, so there's yet another thing I'd need to look into before I even try to get this on a real system...
As for a demo, I don't know. My father wasn't subscribed to PC Gamer enough for alot of DOS related games. Only wing commander demo I have that is PC Gamer is WC:Prophecy.
“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων
I might've bought the GoG version on a sale but haven't actually tried it. Anyway Pentium 133/166 and and beyond would be fine in DOS, no speed problems with this game. I won't rely on SB Live though, if running pure DOS. Stick to ISA SB16 or SBPro-compatible. Or maybe you can try the Dos-to-Windows patch if you insist on SBLive? Don't know if/how that works with GoG version though.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke "No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)
Also from reading the documents, apparently the video player in Privateer 2 caused problems on some hardware configurations, so there's yet another thing I'd need to look into before I even try to get this on a real system...
As for a demo, I don't know. My father wasn't subscribed to PC Gamer enough for alot of DOS related games. Only wing commander demo I have that is PC Gamer is WC:Prophecy.
Ah, so you missed the Coconut Monkey days, when he slam the disc full of goodies, and made yet another excuse for why "Gravy Trader" was delayed. Good times!
I had two old fashioned PC Gamer CD's with coconut monkey and the whole adventure game like interface. But that was about it.
The last DOS game I had on PC Gamer was Redguard.
As for those patches I'll try and check them out. The system downstairs is running a Pentium 3 and a Geforce card (I don't know which one, it also has a Voodoo 2 SLI in it, but Privateer 2 is not a glide game) it's also on windows 98.
EDIT: It says the patch has problems with VirtualMIDISynth and I still haven't beenable to get BASSMIDISYNTH to cooperate anymore... I'm still utterly confused why BASSMIDI nolonger works, I get no errors windows attempting to use it, dependencywalker does not complain about any of the dll files. I wish someone could help me figure out what is wrong with that.
I've been using SVN Daum's inbuilt fluidsynth for music, I don't like fluidsynth but it's the only thing that works... I would of made use of VirtualMIDISynth if only it had sinc interpolation like BASSMidiSynth, and if it didn't cause a massive delay whenever it is starting.
EDIT 2: The patch doesn't work. It just flashes my screen black and does nothing.
All that sounds complicated for a 1996 DOS game... How about just play it in pure DOS?
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke "No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)
I remember seeing this thread about certain missions not appearing because GOG.com uses a single DVD image instead of separate CD images. But I don't know how much of this is true.
I did play the game back in the days as a kid when it came out. Don't know what PC I had but I had a 17" CRT. I believe it was a P133.
I'm so far not running into problems with missions, I have BASSMIDI working again thanks to rfnagel's help so I'm playing this in DaumCafe but still, it turns into a massive slide show whenever I get too close to stuff. And the game still crashes Daum in the dynamic recompiler.
I'd like to try to get this on the machine downstairs if that's even possible, but that 98 machine doesn't respond to USB harddisks so I don't think it's Win98SE nor does it have drivers for "USB Mass Storage Device".
“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων
Hmm game doesn't use any image files. Just a plain folder.
Copied it over, ran SETSOUND, edited the CFG file to show the changed path. Game runs but I'm looking at a Please Insert CD 1 screen...
Hmmm..., do you know if the GOG copy is the deluxe version or the original DOS? I have the deluxe; it's Win95 only, but my retro box, of course, is not. If GOG is DOS, I might try creating splitting it up into multiple cds, since it apparently wants that, and then try running it that way. It should be 3 cds. The last two are pretty much just movies. I can use the deluxe version as a rough guide on how to split up the files. I will try...
Have tried to run the DOS version of Privateer 2: the Darkening on my P4/WinXpSp3 system.
Cdrom error in a vanilla Xp (of course, mscdex emulation is very basic).
VDMSound's SAPUCDEX did the trick - the game runs. But - it is too fast/freezes in PDA/interface.
Hmm game doesn't use any image files. Just a plain folder.
Copied it over, ran SETSOUND, edited the CFG file to show the changed path. Game runs but I'm looking at a Please Insert CD 1 screen...
Hmmm..., do you know if the GOG copy is the deluxe version or the original DOS? I have the deluxe; it's Win95 only, but my retro box, of course, is not. If GOG is DOS, I might try creating splitting it up into multiple cds, since it apparently wants that, and then try running it that way. It should be 3 cds. The last two are pretty much just movies. I can use the deluxe version as a rough guide on how to split up the files. I will try...
It doesn't use any discs. Just files in a folder.
But seriously the game is not that expensive. If you're really keen I would buy it and see if you can make it to run. You seem to know the game quite well. I'm sure it's something little that avoids this CD check.
The reason why the CD Check is fooled is probably because in DosBOX you're mounting the root of "C:" as the entire priv2 folder.
You probably need to shuffle some folders to your root on your real system to make it work. If not crack open some hefty reverse engineering to hack the game to look for the related stuff in the working directory and not the root of a particular drive.
“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων
The reason why the CD Check is fooled is probably because in DosBOX you're mounting the root of "C:" as the entire priv2 folder.
You probably need to shuffle some folders to your root on your real system to make it work. If not crack open some hefty reverse engineering to hack the game to look for the related stuff in the working directory and not the root of a particular drive.
Ok copying the entire game to C:\ like in DOSBox gets the game going 😀
There is a .CFG file with two folder entries. Might play with those.
The videos are painful to watch because of the scanlines.
Game struggles on a MMX 166. I played it on a P133 as a kid, wow must have lagged quite a lot.
Does the game act really erratic when you switch to rear view? If you're tailing a cruiser switching to rear view will make your guns fire so damn fast it completely destroys whatever's infront of you.
“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων
